Wealthy individuals and companies will no longer be able to hide their riches in Zurich bank accounts after Switzerland bowed to international pressure to end the era of "no questions asked" banking.
It will join Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and Andorra, which also agreed this week to share limited information on their accounts on request from foreign governments, ending 300 years of obstinate banking secrecy. The move is a fillip to Gordon Brown's attempts to clamp down on tax havens at next month's G20 meeting. On the more critical issue of stimulating the world economy, however, the rift between Britain and the US and the rest of Europe widened as the G20 finance ministers met in Horsham, West Sussex, to discuss how to react.
European leaders, including Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, hardened their position against calls by Gordon Brown for other countries to pump more money into their economies. Mr. Brown was backed by Timothy Geithner, the US Treasury Secretary, who described injections worth 2 per cent of gross domestic product as "reasonable". But the IMF estimates that only Australia, China, Spain, Saudi Arabia and the US will do this.
Japan, too, weighed in behind an Anglo-American push for more tax cuts and government spending to bolster economies.
Ms. Merkel, who met Mr. Brown at Chequers yesterday, said that she did "not think much" of a new package of measures after agreeing a common position with President Sarkozy of France against stimulus spending but in favour of tighter financial regulation. Robert Zoellick, President of the World Bank, also warned that a one-off injection of spending and tax cuts would not be enough and further stimulus would be needed next year.
"If you don't take on the banking issue, the stimulus is just like a sugar high. It pushes some energy into the system. But then you get the let down unless you reopen the credit markets," he said.
